Anne Severn and the Fieldings - May Sinclair
"Not so hard as you think."
She smiled a mysterious, quiet smile, as if she contemplated some happy
secret. He thought he knew it, Anne's secret.
"Do you think it's funny of me to be living here with Colin?"
He laughed.
"I suppose it's all right. You always had pluck enough for anything."
"It doesn't take pluck to stick to Colin."
"Moral pluck."
"No. Not even moral."
"You were always fond of him, weren't you?"
That was about as far as he dare go.
She smiled her strange smile again.
"Yes. I was always fond of him.... You see, he wants me more than
anybody else ever did or ever will."
"I'm not so sure about that. But he always did get what he wanted."
"Oh, does he! How about Queenie?"
"Even Queenie. I suppose he wanted her at the time."
"He doesn't want her now. Poor Colin."
"You mustn't ask me to pity him."
"Ask you? He'd hate you to pity him. I'd hate you to pity _me_."
"I shouldn't dream of pitying you, any more than I should dream of
criticising you."
"Oh, you may criticise as much as you like."
"No. Whatever you did it would make no difference. I should know it was
right because you did it."
"It wouldn't be. I do heaps of wrong things, but _this_ is right."
"I'm sure it is." "Here's Colin," she said.
He had come out to look for them. He couldn't bear to be alone.
vi
Jerrold had gone to Sutton's Farm to say good-bye to their old nurse,
Nanny Sutton.
Nanny talked about the war, about the young men who had gone from Wyck
and would not come back, about the marvel of Sutton's living on through
it all, and he so old and feeble. She talked about Colin and Anne.
"Oh, Master Jerrold," she said, "I do think it's a pity she should be
livin' all alone with Mr. Colin like this 'ere."
"They're all right, Nanny. You needn't worry."
"Well--well, Miss Anne was always one to go her own way and make it seem
the right way."
"You may be perfectly sure it is the right way."
"I'm not sayin' as 'tisn't. And I dunnow what Master Colin'd a done
without her. But it do make people talk. There's a deal of strange
things said in the place."
"Don't listen to them."
"Eh dear, I'll not 'ear a word. When anybody says anything to me I tell
'em straight they'd oughter be ashamed of themselves, back-bitin' and
slanderin'."
"That's right, Nanny, you give it them in the neck."
"If it'd only end in talk, but there's been harm done to the innocent.
There's Mr. and Mrs. Kimber. Kimber, 'e's my 'usband's cousing." Nanny
paused.
"What about him?"
"Well, 'tis this way. They're doin' for Miss Anne, livin' in the house
with her. Kimber, 'e sees to the garden and Mrs. Kimber she cooks and
that. And Kimber--that's my 'usband's cousin--'e was gardener at the
vicarage. And now 'e's lost his job along of Master Colin and Miss
Anne."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, sir, 'tis the vicar. 'E says they 'adn't oughter be livin' in the
house with Miss Anne, because of the talk there's been. So 'e says
Kimber must choose between 'em. And Kimber, 'e says 'e'd have minded
what parson said if it had a bin a church matter or such like, but
parson or no parson, 'e says 'e's his own master an' 'e won't have no
interferin' with him and his missus. So he's lost his job."
"Poor old Kimber. What a beastly shame."
"Eh, 'tis a shame to be sure."
"Never mind; I can give him a bigger job at the Manor."
"Oh, Master Jerrold, if you would, it'd be a kindness, I'm sure. And
Kimber 'e deserves it, the way they've stuck to Miss Anne."
"He does indeed. It's pretty decent of them. I'll see about that before
I go."
"Thank you, sir. Sutton and me thought maybe you'd do something for him,
else I shouldn't have spoken. And if there's anything I can do for Miss
Anne I'll do it. I've always looked on her as one of you. But 'tis a
pity, all the same."
"You mustn't say that, Nanny. I tell you it's all perfectly right."
"Well, I shall never say as 'tisn't. No, nor think it. You can trust me
for that, Master Jerrold."
He thought: Poor old Nanny. She lies like a brick.
vii
He said to himself that he would never know the truth about Anne and
Colin. If he went to them and asked them he would be no nearer knowing.
They would have to lie to him to save each other. In any case, his
mother had made it clear to him that as long as Anne had to look after
Colin he couldn't ask them. If they were innocent their innocence must
be left undisturbed. If they were not innocent, well--he had lost the
right to know it. Besides, he was sure, as sure as if they had told him.
He knew how it would be. Colin's wife would come home and she would
divorce Colin and he would marry Anne. So far as Jerrold could see, that
was his brother's only chance of happiness and sanity.
As for himself, there was nothing he could do now but clear out and
leave them.
And, as he had no desire to go back to his mother and hear about Anne
and Colin all over again, he went down to the Durhams' in Yorkshire for
the rest of his leave.
He hadn't been there five days before he and Maisie were engaged; and
before the two weeks were up he had married her.
X
ELIOT
i
Eliot stood in the porch of the Manor Farm house. There was nobody there
to greet him. Behind him on the oak table in the hall the wire he had
sent lay unopened.
It was midday in June.
All round the place the air was sweet with the smell of the mown hay,
and from the Broad Pasture there came the rattle and throb of the
mowing-machines.
Eliot went down the road and through the gate into the hay-field. Colin
and Anne were there. Anne at the top of the field drove the mower,
mounted up on the shell-shaped iron seat, white against the blue sky.
Colin at the bottom, slender and tall above the big revolving wheel,
drove the rake. The tedding machine, driven by a farm hand, went
between. Its iron-toothed rack caught the new-mown hay, tossed it and
scattered it on the field. Beside the long glistening swaths the cut
edge of the hay stood up clean and solid as a wall. Above it the raised
plane of the grass-tops, brushed by the wind, quivered and swayed,
whitish green, greenish white, in a long shimmering undulation.
Eliot went on to meet Anne and Colin as they turned and came up the
field again.
When they saw him they jumped down and came running.
"Eliot, you never told us."
"I wired at nine this morning."
"There's nobody in the house and we've not been in since breakfast at
seven," Colin said.
"It's twelve now. Time you knocked off for lunch, isn't it?"
"Are you all right, Eliot?" said Anne.
"Rather."
He gave a long look at them, at their sun-burnt faces, at their clean,
slender grace, Colin in his cricketing flannels, and Anne in her
land-girl's white-linen coat, knickerbockers, and grey wideawake.
"Colin doesn't look as if there was much the matter with him. He might
have been farming all his life."
"So I have," said Colin; "considering that I haven't lived till now."
And they went back together towards the house.
ii
Colin's and Anne's work was done for the day. The hay in the Broad
Pasture was mown and dried. Tomorrow it would be heaped into cocks and
carried to the stackyard.
It was the evening of Eliot's first day. He and Anne sat out under the
apple trees in the orchard.
"What on earth have you done to Colin?" he said. "I expected to find him
a perfect wreck."
"He was pretty bad three months ago. But it's good for him being down
here in the place he used to be happy in. He knows he's safe here. It's
good for him doing jobs about the farm, too."
"I imagine it's good for him being with you."
"Oh, well, he knows he's safe with me."
"Very safe. He owes it to you that he's sane now. You must have been
astonishingly wise with him."
"It didn't take much wisdom. Not more than it used to take when he was a
little frightened kid. That's all he was when he came back from the war,
Eliot."
"The point is that you haven't treated him like a kid. You've made a man
of him again. You've given him a man's life and a man's work."
"That's what I want to do. When he's trained he can look after Jerrold's
land. You know poor Barker died last month of septic pneumonia. The camp
was full of it."
"I know."
"What do you think of my training Colin?"
"It's all right for him, Anne. But how about you?"
"Me? Oh, _I'm_ all right. You needn't worry about me."
"I do worry about you. And your father's worrying."
"Dear old Daddy. It _is_ silly of him. As if anything mattered but
Colin."
"_You_ matter. You see, your father doesn't like your being here alone
with him. He's afraid of what people may think."
"I'm not. I don't care what people think. They've no business to."
"No; but they will, and they do...You know what I mean, Anne, don't
you?"
"I suppose you mean they think I'm Colin's mistress. Is that it?"
"I'm afraid it is. They can't think anything else. It's beastly of them,
I know, but this is a beastly world, dear, and it doesn't do to go on
behaving as if it wasn't."
"I don't care. If people are beastly it's their look-out, not mine. The
beastlier they are the less I care."
"I don't suppose you care if the vicar's wife won't call or if Lady
Corbett and the Hawtreys cut you. But that's why."
"Is it? I never thought about it. I'm too busy to go and see them and I
supposed they were too busy to come and see me. I certainly don't care."
"If it was people you cared about?"
"Nobody I care about would think things like that of me."
"Anne dear, I'm not so sure."
"Then it shows how much they care about _me_."
"But it's because they care."
"I can't help it. They may care, but they don't know. They can't know
anything about me if they think that."
"And you honestly don't mind?"
"I mind what _you_ think. But you don't think it, Eliot, do you?"
"I? Good Lord no! Do you mind what mother thinks?"
"Yes, I mind. But it doesn't matter very much."
"It would matter if Jerrold thought it."
"Oh Eliot--_does_ he?"
"I don't suppose he thinks precisely that. But I'm pretty sure he
thought you and Colin cared for each other."
"What makes you think so?"
"His marrying Maisie like that."
"Why shouldn't he marry her?"
"Because it's you he cares about."
Eliot's voice was quiet and heavy. She knew that what he said was true.
That quiet, heavy voice was the voice of her own innermost conviction.
Yet under the shock of it she sat silent, not looking at him, looking
with wide, fixed eyes at the pattern the apple boughs made on the sky.
"How do you know?" she said, presently.
"Because of the way he talked to mother before he came to see you here.
She says he was frightfully upset when she told him about you and
Colin."
"She told him _that?_"
"Apparently."
"What did she do it for, Eliot?"
"What does mother do anything for? I imagine she wanted to put Jerrold
off so that you could stick on with Colin. You've taken him off her
hands and she wants him kept off."
"So she told him I was Colin's mistress."
"Mind you, she doesn't think a bit the worse of you for that. She
admires you for it no end."
"Do you suppose I care what she thinks? It's her making Jerrold think
it...Eliot, how could she?"
"She could, because she only sees things as they affect herself."
"Do you believe she really thinks it?"
"She's made herself think it because she wanted to."
"But why--why should she want to?"
"I've told you why. She's afraid of having to look after Colin. I've no
illusions about mother. She's always been like that. She wouldn't see
what she was doing to you. Before she did it she'd persuaded herself
that it was Colin and not Jerrold that you cared for. And she wouldn't
do it deliberately at all. I know it has all the effect of low cunning,
but it isn't. It's just one of her sudden movements. She'd rush into it
on a blind impulse."
Anne saw it all, she saw that Adeline had slandered her to Jerrold and
to Eliot, that she had made use of her love for Colin, which was her
love for Jerrold, to betray her; that she had betrayed her to safeguard
her own happy life, without pity and without remorse; she had done all
of these things and none of them. They were the instinctive movements of
her funk. Where Adeline's ease and happiness were concerned she was one
incarnate funk. You couldn't think of her as a reasonable and
responsible being, to be forgiven or unforgiven.
"It doesn't matter how she did it. It's done now," she said.
"Really, Anne, it was too bad of Colin. He oughtn't to have let you."
"He couldn't help it, poor darling. He wasn't in a state. Don't put that
into his head. It just had to happen... I don't care, Eliot. If it was
to be done again to-morrow I'd do it. Only, if I'd known, I could have
told Jerrold the truth. The others can think what they like. It'll only
make me stick to Colin all the more. I promised Jerrold I'd look after
him and I shall as long as he wants me. It serves them all right. They
all left him to me--Daddy and Aunt Adeline and Queenie, I mean--and they
can't stop me now."
"Mother doesn't want to stop you. It's your father."
"I'll write and tell Daddy. Besides, it's too late. If I left Colin
to-morrow it wouldn't stop the scandal. My reputation's gone and I can't
get it back, can I?"
"Dear Anne, you don't know how adorable you are without it."
"Look here, Eliot, what did your mother tell _you_ for?"
"Same reason. To put me off, too."
They looked at each other and smiled. Across their memories, across the
years of war, across Anne's agony they smiled. Besides its courage and
its young, candid cynicism, Anne's smile expressed her utter trust in
him.
"As if," Eliot said, "it would have made the smallest difference."
"Wouldn't it have?"
"No, Anne. Nothing would."
"That's what Jerrold said. And _he_ thought it. I wondered what he
meant."
"He meant what I mean."
The moments passed, ticked off by the beating of his heart, time and his
heart beating violently together. Not one of them was his moment, not
one would serve him for what he had to say, falling so close on their
intolerable conversation. He meant to ask Anne to marry him; but if he
did it now she would suspect him of chivalry; it would look as if he
wanted to make up to her for all she had lost through Colin; as if he
wanted more than anything to save her.
So Eliot, who had waited so long, waited a little longer, till the
evening of his last day.
iii
Anne had gone up with him to Wyck Manor, to see the soldiers. Ever since
they had come there she had taken cream and fruit to them twice a week
from the Farm. Unaware of what was thought of her, she never knew that
the scandal of young Fielding and Miss Severn had penetrated the
Convalescent Home with the fruit and cream. And if she had known it she
would not have stayed away. People's beastliness was no reason why she
shouldn't go where she wanted, where she had always gone. The
Convalescent Home belonged to the Fieldings, and the Fieldings were her
dearest friends who had been turned into relations by her father's
marriage. So this evening, absorbed in the convalescents, she never saw
the matron's queer look at her or her pointed way of talking only to
Eliot.
Eliot saw it.
He thought: "It doesn't matter. She's so utterly good that nothing can
touch her. All the same, if she marries me she'll be safe from this sort
of thing."
They had come to the dip of the valley and the Manor Farm water.
"Let's go up the beech walk," he said.
They went up and sat in the beech ring where Anne had sat with Jerrold
three months ago. Eliot never realised how repeatedly Jerrold had been
before him.
"Anne," he said, "it's more than five years since I asked you to marry
me."
"Is it, Eliot?"
"Do you remember I said then I'd never give you up?"
"I remember. Unless Jerrold got me, you said. Well, he hasn't got me."
"I wouldn't want you to tie yourself up with me if there was the
remotest chance of Jerrold; but, as there isn't, don't you think--"
"No, Eliot, I don't."
"But you do care for me, Anne, a little. I know you do."
"I care for you a great deal; but not in that sort of way."
"I'm not asking you to care for me in the way you care for Jerrold. You
may care for me any way you please if you'll only marry me. You don't
know how awfully little I'd be content to take."
"I shouldn't be content to give it, though. You oughtn't to have
anything but the best."
"It would be the best for me, you see."
"Oh no, Eliot, it wouldn't. You only think it would because you're an
angel. It would be awful of me to give so little when I take such a lot.
I know what your loving would be."
"If you know you must have thought of it. And if you've thought of it--"
"I've only thought of it to see how impossible it is. It mightn't be if
I could leave off loving Jerrold. But I can't...Eliot, I've got the
queerest feeling about him. I know you'll think me mad, when he's gone
and married somebody else, but I feel all the time as if he hadn't, as
if he belonged to me and always had; and I to him. Whoever Maisie's
married it isn't Jerrold. Not the real Jerrold."
"The fact remains that she's married him."
"No. Not him. Only a bit of him. Some bit that doesn't matter."
"Anne darling, I'd try not to think that."
"I don't think it. I feel it. Down there, deep inside me. I've always
felt that Jerrold would come back to me and he came back. Then there was
Colin. He'll come back again."
"Then there'll be Maisie."
"No, then there won't be Maisie. There won't be anything if he really
comes...Now you see how mad I am. Now you see how awful it would be to
marry me."
"No, Anne. I see it's the only way to keep you safe."
"Safe from what? Safe from Jerrold? I don't want to be safe from him.
Eliot, I'm telling you this because you trust me. I want you to see me
as I really am, so that you won't want to marry me any more."
"Ah, that's not the way to make me. Nothing you say makes any
difference. Nothing you could do would make any difference."
"Supposing it had been true what your mother said, wouldn't that?"
"No. If you'd given yourself to Colin I should only have thought it was
your goodness. It would have been good because you did it."
"How queer. That's what Jerrold said. Then he _did_ love me."
"I told you he loved you."
"Then I don't care. Nothing else matters."
"That's all you have to say to me?"
"Yes. Unless I lie."
"You'd lie for Jerrold."
"For him. Not to him. I should never need to."
"You've no need to lie to me, dear. I know you better than he does. You
forget that I didn't think what he thought."
"That only shows that he knew."
"Knew what?"
"What I am. What I might do if I really cared."
"There are things you'd never do. You'd never do anything mean or
dishonourable or cruel."
"Oh, you don't know what I'd do...Don't worry, Eliot. I shall be too
busy with the land and with Colin to do very much."
"I'm not worrying."
All the same he wondered which of them knew Anne best, he or Anne
herself, or Jerrold.
XI
INTERIM
i
Colin thought with terror of the time when Queenie would come back from
the war. At any moment she might get leave and come; if she had not had
it yet that only made it more likely that she would have it soon.
The vague horror that waited for him every morning had turned into this
definite fear of Queenie. He was afraid of her temper, of her voice and
eyes, of her crude, malignant thoughts, of her hatred of Anne. More than
anything he was afraid of her power over him, of her vehement,
exhausting love. He was afraid of her beauty.
One morning, early in September, the wire came. Colin shook with
agitation as he read it.
"What is it?" Anne said.
"Queenie. She's got leave. She'll be here today. At four o'clock."
"Don't you want to see her?"
"No, I don't."
"Then you'd better drive over to Kingden and look at those bullocks of
Ledbury's."
"I don't know anything about bullocks. They ought to be straight lines
from their heads to their tails. That's about all I know."
"Never mind, you'll have gone to look at bullocks. And you can tell
Ledbury I'm coming over to-morrow. Do you mind driving yourself?"
Colin did mind. He was afraid to drive by himself; but he was much more
afraid of Queenie.
"You can take Harry. And leave me to settle Queenie."
Colin went off with Harry to Chipping Kingden. And at four o'clock
Queenie came. Her hard, fierce eyes stared past Anne, looking for Colin.
"Where's Colin?" she said.
"He had to go out, but he'll be back before dinner."
Presently Queenie asked if she might go upstairs. As they went you could
see her quick, inquisitive eyes sweeping and flashing.
The door of Colin's room stood open.
"Is that Colin's room?"
"Yes."
She went in, opened the inner door and looked into the gable room.
"Who sleeps here?" she said.
"I do," said Anne.
"You?"
"Have you any objection?"
"You might as well sleep in my husband's room."
"Oh no, this is near enough. I can tell whether he's asleep or awake."
"_Can_ you? And, please, how long has this been going on?"
"I've been sleeping in this room since November. Before that we had our
old rooms at the Manor. There was a passage between, you remember. But
I left the doors wide open."
"Oh no, this is near enough. I can tell whether he's asleep or awake."
"Can you? And, please, how long has this been going on?"
"I've been sleeping in this room since November. Before that we had our
old rooms at the Manor. There was a passage between, you remember. But I
left the doors wide open."
"I suppose," said Queenie, with furious calm, "you want me to divorce
him?"
"Divorce him? Why on earth should you? Just because I looked after him
at night? I _had_ to. There wasn't anybody else. And he was afraid to
sleep alone. He is still. But he's all right as long as he knows I'm
there."
"You expect me to believe that's all there is in it?"
"No, I don't, considering what your mind's like."
"Oh yes, when people do dirty things it's always other people's dirty
minds. Do you imagine I'm a fool, Anne?"
"You're an awful fool if you think Colin's my lover."
"I think it, and I say it."
"If you think it you're a fool. If you say it you're a liar. A damned
liar."
"And is Colin's mother a liar, too?"
"Yes, but not a damned one. It would serve you jolly well right,
Queenie, if he _was_ my lover, after the way you left him to me."
"I didn't leave him to you. I left him to his mother."
"Anyhow, you left him."
"I couldn't help it. _You_ were not wanted at the front and I was. I
couldn't leave hundreds of wounded soldiers just for Colin."
"_I_ had to. He was in an awful state. I've looked after him day and
night; I've got him almost well now, and I think the least you can do is
to keep quiet and let him alone."
"I shall do nothing of the sort. I shall divorce him as soon as the
war's over."
"It isn't over yet. And I don't advise you to try. No decent barrister
would touch your case, it's so rotten."
"Not half so rotten as you'll look when it's in all the papers."
"You can't frighten me that way."
"Can't I? I suppose you'll say you were looking, poor darling, if you do
bring your silly old action. Only please don't do it till he's quite
well, or he'll be ill again...I think that's tea going in. Will you go
down?"
They went down. Tea was laid in the big bare hall. The small round oak
table brought them close together. Anne waited on Queenie with every
appearance of polite attention. Queenie ate and drank in long, fierce
silences; for her hunger was even more imperious than her pride.
"I don't _want_ to eat your food," she said at last. "I'm only doing it
because I'm starving. I dined with Colin's mother last night. It was the
first dinner I've eaten since I went to the war."
"You needn't feel unhappy about it," said Anne. "It's Eliot's house and
Jerrold's food. How's Cutler?"
"Much the same as when you saw him." Queenie answered quietly, but her
face was red.
"And that Johnnie--what was his name?--who took my place?"
Queenie's flush darkened. She was holding her mouth so tight that the
thin red line of the lips faded.
"Noel Fenwick," said Anne, suddenly remembering.
"What about him?" Queenie's throat moved as if she swallowed something
big and hard.
"Is he there still?"
"He was when I left."
Her angry, defiant eyes were fixed on the open doorway. You could see
she was waiting for Colin, ready to fall on him and tear him as soon as
he came in.
"Am I to see Colin or not?" she said as she rose.
"Have you anything to say to him?"
"Only what I've said to you."
"Then you won't see him. In fact I think you'd better not see him at
all."
"You mean he funks it?"
"I funk it for him. He isn't well enough to be raged at and threatened
with proceedings. It'll upset him horribly and I don't see what good
it'll do you."
"No more do I. I'm not going to live with him after this. You can tell
him that. Tell him I don't want to see him or speak to him again."
"I see. You just came down to make a row."
"You don't suppose I came down to stay with you two?"
Queenie was so far from coming down to stay that she had taken rooms for
the night at the White Hart in Wyck. Anne drove her there.